On Sept. 30, Congress passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) to maintain government funding and avoid a government shutdown.

This CR provided Congress with an additional 45 days to continue the appropriations process and pass government funding bills, said Brantley Seifers, INFB’s national affairs director. Although it’s good that Congress was able to avoid a government shutdown, action is still needed to avoid a shutdown in November, he noted.

This prolonged fight to fund the government has taken away from other important legislative tasks, such as passing the 2023 farm bill.

Sept. 30 also was the date that the 2018 farm bill expired, Seifers explained.

“While the vast majority of farm bill programs are still funded through the end of the calendar year, Indiana Farm Bureau is disappointed that a new farm bill was not passed on time,” he said.

“It is our hope that a 2023 farm bill can still be passed before the new year, and we encourage Congress to continue its work to ensure a bipartisan bill becomes law,” he added.

For the 2023 farm bill, INFB and the American Farm Bureau Federation have focused on what Seifers referred to as “the big three”: crop insurance, conservation and nutrition:

• Increase baseline for farm bill program spending.
• Maintain a unified farm bill that keeps nutrition programs and farm programs together.
• Any changes to current farm legislation must be an amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 or the Agricultural Act of 1949.
• Prioritize risk management tools and funding for both federal crop insurance and commodity programs.
• Ensure adequate USDA staffing capacity and technical assistance.

Since the 1930s, Congress has enacted 18 farm bills, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Find out more about INFB’s priorities, including the report from the 2023 farm bill task force, at www.infb.org/nationalissues.

Read more about AFBF’s farm bill priorities at fb.org/issue/farm-policy/farm-bill.